In 2024, Chiquita Brands International was found liable by a US jury for financing a paramilitary group in Colombia, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), between 1997 and 2004. The jury found that by providing over $1.7 million in illegal funding to the AUC over seven years, Chiquita contributed to brutal murders of innocent civilians. The jury ordered Chiquita to pay $38.3m to the families of victims.

Chiquita said in a statement that it intended to appeal against the jury's verdict, arguing that there was "no legal basis for the claims".

Chiquita was alleged to have paid money to the AUC in two regions of Colombia where Chiquita had banana-producing operations. Chiquita allegedly made these payments, often every month, through its Colombian subsidiary Banadex. In total, Chiquita was alleged to have made over 100 payments amounting to over $1.7 million.

The court heard allegations that Chiquita’s payments to the AUC were reviewed and approved by senior executives of the corporation, including high-ranking officers, directors and employees. Chiquita allegedly paid the AUC by check through various intermediaries and recorded these payments in its corporate books and records as “security payments” or payments for “security” or “security services.” The decision found that Chiquita had knowingly financed the AUC, a designated terrorist organization under US law, and that the company had acted in pursuit of profit, despite the AUC’s egregious human rights abuses.

Chiquita claimed that the company had no choice but to pay the AUC to protect its Colombian employees from violence, in particular after a leader of the AUC implied employees would be harmed if payments were not made.

The civil litigation which lead to the 2024 decision began in the wake of a March 2007 plea deal in which Chiquita pleaded guilty in a U.S. District Court to one count of engaging in transactions with a terrorist organization. In April 2003, Chiquita made a voluntary self-disclosure to the U.S. government of its payments to the AUC, giving rise to the investigation.

Chiquita was charged under the US Immigration and Nationality Act, since the AUC had been designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization in 2001. This designation made it a federal crime for Chiquita, as a U.S. corporation, to provide money to the AUC. It was charged that by September 2000, Chiquita’s senior executives knew that the corporation was paying the AUC and that the AUC was a violent, paramilitary organization.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Chiquita’s sentence included a $25 million criminal fine, the requirement to implement and maintain an effective compliance and ethics program, and five years’ probation. In accepting the fines, the prosecution agreed not to name or prosecute the executives involved in ordering the payments, a deal the Colombian government has criticized, saying they will seek to extradite Chiquita executives if they find Colombian laws have been violated.

Sources

Doe v. Chiquita Brands International, case summary, Earthrights International, including case documents

Case timeline and documents, Earthrights International

In late 2024, investigating judges in France ordered cement multinational Lafarge SA and eight others, including four former executives and a Syrian intermediary, to stand trial for financing of terrorism and violating sanctions during the company’s operations in Syria between 2012 and 2014. The trial is scheduled to take place from 4 November to 9 December 2025.

The company and a number of its former managers and employees are also under judicial investigation in France accused of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity committed by ISIS and other armed groups in Syria during the same time period. Those charges were confirmed by the French supreme court.

The Holcim group, owners of Lafarge, has maintained that the alleged conduct was concealed from the company board at the time of the merger with Holcim in 2015 “go completely against our values”.

An investigation was launched in France in 2016 after news reports revealed Lafarge’s dealings in Syria. The French investigative and litigation NGO Sherpa, together with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and eleven former Syrian employees of Lafarge filed a complaint with French authorities.

“The complaint accused Lafarge of making arrangements with IS and several other armed groups in order to keep its Jalabiya cement factory plant open and running between 2012 and 2014 in northeastern Syria. The judicial inquiry has since then determined that the financial value of these arrangements amounted to at least 13 million euros.” (ECCHR)

The complaint alleged that Lafarge “purchased commodities, such as oil and pozzolan, from IS and paid them fees in exchange for permits. By allegedly providing funding to IS, not only did Lafarge seriously endanger the lives of its employees, but it could also be found to be complicit in crimes against humanity committed by the Islamic State in Syria.” (ECCHR)

In parallel proceedings, Lafarge agreed to pay $777.78 million as part of a plea deal with US authorities. The company pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the al-Nusrah Front (ANF), both U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, during the period from 2013 to 2014.

Early in 2025, Lafarge and Holcim brought a claim against former Lafarge executives for damages arising from the Syrian operations.

Sources

Lafarge Case in Syria, case summary and timeline, Sherpa

Lafarge in Syria, case summary, ECCHR

Lafarge SA, Eric Olsen and others, case summary and links to court documents, TRIAL International

Lafarge case timeline, Business and Human Rights Resource Centre

“In Justice Department’s First Corporate Material Support for Terrorism Prosecution, Lafarge S.A. and its Syrian Subsidiary Admit Revenue-Sharing Agreement with ISIS and Agree to Pay $778 Million in Fines and Forfeiture”, US Department of Justice, 18 October 2022

In 2020, French authorities launched an investigation into BNP Paris in connection with its alleged role in providing financial services to the government of Sudan. The investigation was launched in response to a complaint filed by victims of crimes committed by the government of Sudan between 2002 - 2008. In 2024, the investigation was reported to to be ongoing (AFP).

BNP Paribas has declined to comment on the ongoing investigations.

In a 2014 plea deal with US authorities BNP Paribas plead guilty to charges it violated US sanctions by providing financial services to Sudan, Cuba and Iran. Charges in the sanctions case included that BNPP used a system of proxy banks “to process approximately $6.4 billion on behalf of Sudanese sanctioned entities”. As part of the plea deal BNP Paribas admitted the bank had acted for the Sudanese government during the period 2002-2008. BNP Paribas was required to pay a USD $8.9 billion penalty.

In 2024, a US judge ordered a separate law suit to proceed.

The criminal complaint filed in France by victims, with the support of FIDH, alleged that “by providing the Sudanese government with credit facilities, allowing the government to export petrol and access foreign money markets…the bank facilitated the commission of human rights violations amounting to international crimes by the Sudanese government.”(FIDH)

The crime base upon which the complain is based consists of allegations that “the government – through its military and security forces and Janjaweed militias – committed widespread human rights violations amounting to international crimes (including torture, crimes against humanity and genocide) against Sudanese civilians…tens of thousands of Sudanese activists and ordinary civilians were killed, forcibly displaced from their homes, detained, tortured and subjected to inhumane treatment or raped and subjected to other forms of sexual violence.” (FIDH)

Sources

BNP Paribas Agrees to Plead Guilty and to Pay $8.9 Billion for Illegally Processing Financial Transactions for Countries Subject to U.S. Economic Sanctions, US Department of Justice, 30 June 2014

Judicial Investigation Opened into BNP Paribas’ Role in Atrocities in Sudan, FIDH, 11 October 2020

“9 victimes soudanaises portent plainte contre BNP Paribas pour complicité de crimes contre l’humanité”, FIDH 26 September 2019

In the aftermath of World War II, a leading German industrialist, Friedrich Flick, was convicted of aiding and abetting the crimes of the German SS through financial means.

Flick and five managers from his companies were indicted on charges of slave labor, plunder and spoliation - the seizure of Jewish mining and industrial properties - and being accessories to actions of the SS through financial contributions. Three of the accused were convicted on different counts including counts of slave labor, plunder and spoliation, and being accessories to the SS, the crimes of which included murder, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhuman acts. One of Flick’s associates was convicted of membership in the SS.

Flick and another of his co-defendants were convicted as accessories to a criminal organization, the SS, because of their financial contributions. Flick made such contributions as a member of the Friends of Himmler, a circle of businessmen who provided financial contributions to the SS. The Tribunal ruled that: “One who knowingly by his influence and money contributes to the support thereof must, under settled legal principals, be deemed to be, if not a principal, certainly and accessory to such crimes.”

Sources

VI Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10 (1950);

Records of the United States Nuernberg War Crimes Trials,United States of Amercia v. Friedrich Flick et al. (Case V) March 3, 1947-December 22, 1947.